LAW OR GRACE

Chapter 11 of my book, “For Unto Us A Son Is Given” deals extensively with this topic, and I recommend reading this chapter for a full understanding of this subject. However, I think that something should be said for those of you who come across this website and wonder where Beth Yeshua stands on this most important issue.

I realize that it is quite popular for Messianic synagogues to revert to Torah services, the wearing of yarmulkes and tallasim and to use Hebrew liturgy with which Jewish people are more familiar and thus may provide an attraction. There is a downside, however, that is of greater concern. First, the Jewish community views this as deceptive, misleading and surreptitious. For the most part, those who probably never were raised in Orthodoxy are now trying to prove how Jewish they are by these overt signs that have nothing to do with biblical teaching. As it is written, “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus…” (Jn 1:17) Secondly, we do a disservice to our beloved gentile brothers who have a completely different orientation. In Messiah there is neither Jew nor gentile, and the New Testament church was clearly a homogenous body of both who worshipped together as new creations.

Jeremiah 31 promised a new covenant, not the one made when we left Egypt (the law), so what justification is there to go back to the law that we broke and never could keep? In  Hebrews chapter 8 we see that “For if the first covenant had been faultless, there should no place have been sought for the second…”The writer to this epistle adds “and now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” .Romans 3 reminds us “Therefore by the deeds of the flesh shall no man be satisfied in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Clearly we are justified by faith, and if righteousness were of the law, Messiah died in vain.

The book of Galatians deals with the contradiction between law and grace, and this matter should have been settled two thousand years ago. For instance, in verse 3 of chapter 3: “Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh? ”In verse 13 we read: “Messiah hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us…..” Paul explained that the law was added until the seed should come to whom the promise was made. So, there is a beginning and an end, and with the coming of the seed (Jesus), there is no further purpose to be served in keeping the law that never had the power to justify or transform the human heart. He states in verses 22 and 23: “But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Messiah Jesus might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. ”Paul adds the rather poignant plea in Galatians 4:9 “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire to be in bondage? And in the following chapter, per v. 4: “Messiah is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”

For those of you who disagree, I will not sit in judgment, but I pray that you will search out the motivation of your heart to learn what God would have you to do. And to those who suggest that there is a different way for the Jew and gentile, here too, I pray that you consider that the middle wall of partition has been torn down to make no separation between those of other backgrounds. I find no justification to support separation between any of God’s people, nor do I wish to promote dissention and allow legalism to undo all that our Savior died for.